Finishing almost-unfinished projects:
What would you say,
the poles on the upper end too long, too short?
On the lower end too short?
Good as they are?
(They are already glued and I’d rather not change them, but in case I should I’d better do it now when there is still one left than later.)
The length of the weapons are good, but the hammer heads are too small in my opinion. Apart from that, great conversions again.
Why though, too small for what?
I got a similar comment from my greenskin player, but when regarding fantasy larp weapons on the one hand and real historic weapons on the other, he dismissed both, one as fantasy nonsense, the other for looking too different from miniatures anyway.
So where comes the expectation of bigger hammer heads?
So far we had two versions:
One is that from the usual dwarf and greenskin aesthetics people are used to everything being short and big and expect car-sized hammer heads when they see miniatures, while you probably wouldn’t say so about his hammer:
and the Lumineth Stoneguard’s hammers even look much too big for their tiny elven hands:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/yYUE9sp678Y0MXnI.jpg
The other explanation would be connected to the poles‘ thickness, dictated by the hand sculpts, but perhaps looking out of size with the hammer heads.
The goal I had for the bull centaur was indeed smaller hammer heads on longer poles, what mechanically makes sense but somehow contradicts people’s first expectations when being looked at.
Your argumentation is of course conclusive, but I was only concerned with my aesthetic perception, and this is totally subjective. And that’s why I still find the hammerheads a bit too small, even if physics and logic of course agree with you. Besides, you wanted to hear my (well, maybe not mine, but the forum’s) opinion! 
Of course you don’t have to apologize for having an opinion, especially after being asked for such but not only, nor for changing it! ^^
(You can even find things actively bad and I’ll be just as thankful for the input!)
Originally the poles were even shorter, under the influence of aforementioned greenskin player (I’ll just blame him as he is not reading here anyway):
When putting together the models, I noticed that the result was not at all what I was having in mind and let the poles end somewhere inside the hands and added the lower end to prolong the whole thing. I probably agree that having them longer could be more in line with the more heroic look of many models where weapons are at least somewhat to unwieldy (one way or another) to realistically use them. Theoretically I could still cut and prolong the lower end a bit, but I’d have to be convinced that it would be enough of an improvement at this point.
Since the new contest is already online, let me post the entry from the last one, the Artisan’s Contest XXXVII themed around Regiments of Renown. And try the new grid feature on this occasion. Of course, since it was an artisan contest, I couldn’t enter with just miniatures but needed a different idea, and I was not in the mood or had the right idea for just a classic painting.
After discussing it with a (non-tabletop) friend, and more or less last minute deciding to actually making it, it became this:
“Dark Lands Ads”
…would be the title, with obvious relation to the topic.
The stick is temporary and, in fact, not a stick at all, but I was hoping it would help illustrate what this thing is supposed to be.
Would also be a bit difficult to store otherwise for the lack of a vulcanic wasteland with marauding orc tribes here in the city.
I‘m kind of happy with the result, the metal rim and leather background came out well, but in hindsight, apart from technical details here and there, giving it a reduced colour palate would have helped underline its intended function.
Well, yes, this Darkforged thing made me put some attention on CD infantry again.
But since redoing the already rather effortful shields, going back to an earlier design, is more on the frustrating side of the hobby, I decided to do something significantly more entertaining.
Bases, that in large numbers make you notice the number of their creation steps, so it’s been a few days again. But I decided to document it this time, as long as I more of less remember the process.
The square plates were already prepared from earlier. They are 20 mm in case you are wondering.
So, first there would be rough coffee,
then the fine one,
then a coat with something the dictionary translates deep solvent primer to let it all set,
(you won’t recognize much change, it’s a transparent liquids that dries after a while.)
And yesterday I filed the edges into a smoother and more base-like shape:
Looking at it, maybe at the end of the month I’ll have finished bases for the hypothetical core unit. ^^"
The colouring part, before the crackle medium, is the interesting part I had to experiment more with and remember worse what the optimized process came out to be at the end. So it’ll become even more interesting the next days…
Stay tuned, or so.
Nice Dark Lands advertisment and basing technique!
Welcome to Part 2 of my Darklands bases tutorial!
(I just decided I’ll call it a tutorial to give it more weight in lack of having miniatures to show.)
The next steps were drybrushing with a flesh tone, and for the future lava glow, applying first some white (basecoat in this case, but doesn’t matter) in some spots, typically where there are gaps between the coffee, and then a Fluo Scarlet. Probably a normal colour would do it just as well.
Then I added some shade in form of some watered down black ink + brown wash, primarily to the same spots as the “lava”, because you want it dark around your glow.
Most of it didn’t matter after the next step when you cover most of it with Agrellan Earth, so you can probably streamline parts of the process:
Yes, I’m simply using the GW crackle medium. Tried a quality one from an arts store but this was probably composed for a thinner coat on a flat surface. For grainy coffee earth the Citadel stuff worked better.
Here is a photo from the other half of the bases immediately after applying the medium to show what is consciously left out and what is natural crackling:
After drying the crackled layer also was drybrushed as well,
and then I used pigments, some terracotta-like earth tone and titanium white after, to create some variety and interest. Setting them with the liquid from the previous post I didn’t know how to call. It read like a thin acrylic medium (with surely some additives) so I considered it a reasonable choice.
Done!
Or rather: Done after it has dried.
That’s a cool look!
